


Close Not The Door To Paradise

by ya_idjits



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Death, Demon!Dean, Heaven, What if?, brief mention of Bobby, brief mentions of Castiel - Freeform, brief mentions of charlie, brief mentions of john, i finally wrote something yaaay, i miss them, i'm sorry guys i din't know what to write about so this kinda splurted out of the tip of my pen, idk - Freeform, ignore me, movin' quick kinda fic, yaaay Harvelles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2743178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ya_idjits/pseuds/ya_idjits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Dean's soul must have done <em>something</em> between when he died and when he reawoke as a demon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Not The Door To Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Love's Springtide" by Frank Dempster Sherman.

After he’d wheezed out “I’m proud of us” and sputtered  up some more blood, Dean didn’t really remember much else. That was kinda the gig with death – pain followed by everything fading to black. Christ knows he should recognise the sensation by now, although the whole ‘fading to black’ bit was usually followed by something similar to another impossible chance at life, which was why he wasn’t at all surprised to find Baby’s interior blurring into focus. She didn’t have her iPod dock (to which Dean had become attached, even if he’d never admit it), though, so he knew something was up. That’s when he looked out the window.

Fuck knows what he was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t what he saw: his brother's old apartment, a couple of blocks from the campus of Stanford University. Without really knowing what he was doing, he stepped out of Baby, clutching a paperclip in his jacket pocket. Dad’s jacket, really, Dad’s old leather jacket that he’d given to Dean when he turned twenty-one – but only because they’d hustled enough money playing pool that week that John could afford a new one.

Dean broke into the apartment easily; he’d done it before, right? Silently hanging his jacket on the back of a chair, he remembered that at this point in the break-in he’d rummaged around for a beer or two.

Enter Sam.

When their fight and following conversation went no differently than Dean remembered it, he began to have a suspicion about where he was. Of course, that’s when everything warped and faded, leaving him in an entirely different dark room than his kid brother’s kitchen. This room was huge and there were rows of people in front of him, all staring at the single source of light: a stage commanded by a lone pirouetting figure.

With a start, Dean realised that he was reliving the only time he had ever been inside of a theatre. Lisa had taken him and Ben to see _Coppélia,_ a ballet that Dean had immediately compared to Pinocchio. Lisa’s face, noticeable in his periphery, was shining with stage lights, the warm glow spilling down to the neckline of her emerald cocktail dress. Ben sat on her other side, staring raptly at the ballerina. This had been one of those times where Dean could observe them unnoticed. As he did it again, he realised just how much he missed them, and _ow_ , that burning ache in his chest hurt like a bitch. In the hopes of diverting himself, he turned his attention back to the stage, where the singular ballerina twirled and stretched and jetéd with such grace and emotion that Dean felt Swanilda’s sorrow reach out in searching tendrils, tenaciously transfixing him in his red velvet seat. The stage lights brightened and blurred.

He was in Purgatory, hugging his angel for the first time in months.

He was watching Charlie Bradbury try on clothing, playing a bad 80’s pop song from his phone to help her with her vision of a montage.

He was twelve years old, Sam chasing him around Bobby’s living room and tripping over the couch as he desperately tried to tug the eight or nine pony-holders from his hair. Dean laughed as he skidded into the kitchen, throwing his head back the same way he always had.

He was in a forest. An unfamiliar forest.

Okay, that was a new one.

And then a stumbling figure sprinted out of the shrubbery clad in a mask and tiny cape and gripped his wrist, and everything crashed together just as he had expected it to. He was in Heaven. He was in Heaven, and the door he was tripping through revealed the Roadhouse, complete with both Harvelles and a slightly disheveled Kevin Tran.

The first thing Jo did was slap him. Then, she kissed him. Ellen didn’t look at all shocked to see him, and turned to Ash as he yanked off his mask and set it on the bar top.

“What do you think for Celebration, Ash? Gin and tonics, or the Winchester Special?”

“The Winchester Special?” Kevin asked.

“Whiskey with a side of whiskey,” Ellen explained. She pulled Jo and Dean out of their now quite heated kiss so she could attack him with a bear-hug that radiated maternal care and also somehow felt like a scolding for getting himself killed. Kevin followed, murmuring that it was good to see him, and Ash hugged him even more tightly than Ellen and then pulled away for a fist bump.

Once they were seated at the bar with rather healthy-sized glasses of whiskey, Ash took a gulp and turned to Dean. He was still wearing his cape.

“So what’s the story, morning glory?”

“Yeah, how’d you kick it this time?” Jo added.

“Angel,” Dean grunted.

Kevin smirked and finished his whiskey. “Ah, yeah, I know what you mean.”

Ellen smacked him on the shoulder. “Stop teasin’ the poor boy, he’s guilt-ridden enough as it is.”

“It’s fine,” Dean said, frowning. “I deserved it.”

He explained all the things that had happened to him and his brother since their last visit to Heaven, Kevin nodding and adding his two cents when he was introduced to the story.

“I think I want Crowley to meet the Harvelles,” he told Dean. “They’d tear him a new one.”

Jo sighed. "Just imagine. I could wear my own clothes this time." 

Dean chuckled. “Yeah. Sammy’d probably love to watch that, all the shit that bastard’s done.”

“Speaking of that, where is that brother of yours?” Ellen said brusquely, raising her eyebrows.

“Winchester tradition, probably. Pretend you’re not mourning, put the corpse back on its bed, try to wake it up. Lots of whiskey.”

“I’d imagine,” Ash sighed.

That’s when things started to fade to blackness. Blackness tinged with angry, spiteful red. The voices in the Roadhouse fell away, replaced by a gruff voice with an unmistakeable British accent. Dean realised that the reddish-blackness he was staring at was light through his eyelids, which swirled and flashed orange when he rolled his eyes – Crowley was giving some sort of motivational speech.

Dean could feel the rough handle of something clenched in his calloused fingers: the First Blade. He gently twitched his thumbs, trying to regain the feeling of life. He could feel dried blood flecked on the side of his face and crusty around the wound in his stomach, which was quickly clenching and closing. It was a very strange but not entirely unpleasant sensation. For some reason, Dean could hear better than he ever had before. He could feel the Mark of Cain pulsing on his forearm, pumping the juicy glow of power through his veins. When he felt no hole in his gut at all and he could tighten all ten fingers around the blade, he decided to tune in to what Crowley was saying.

“Open your eyes, Dean.”

So he did.


End file.
